


Equilibria

by Leyenn



Series: Dreams of Honest Horn [9]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, Nightmares, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-06
Updated: 2011-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-21 02:39:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Schisms</i>. He always turns to her when he needs someone, and she's always there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equilibria

"I _feel_ like I'm sleeping." He sighs, letting his eyes slip closed, and tries to do as Deanna ordered and relax. It's damned hard, even stretched out with his head resting in her lap, on his own couch instead of in her office like any normal patient. Not that he's ever been a normal patient for her. "I fall asleep straight away, and then it's morning already, and I might as well never have gone to bed."

"You're exhausted," she says gently, her voice full of concern. He can feel her probing around in his mind: light, deft touches here and there, carefully testing synapses and responses, weighing the balance of his emotions with the skill of a master. Her fingers are stroking through his hair, slowly and tenderly, luring him into relaxation; between the two sensations it should all feel decidedly sensual, even erotic, if he weren't so incredibly tired.

"Maybe you should see Beverly."

"Mm." His scalp tingles at her touch, mental and physical. "Not finding anything in there, huh?"

She sighs. "You're fatigued, frustrated, overworked, but that's all. Nothing out of the ordinary." She touches two fingertips to each of his temples, very lightly. "Do you want me to make you sleep?"

The idea has a definite appeal. He opens his eyes heavily, looking up at her. "I have to be on the bridge in two hours."

"Only if your ship's counselor considers you fit for duty." They both know she can't officially report her intimate knowledge about the state of his mind, but she could hold him off shift if she chose to, and after two days of this he's not sure she wouldn't have cause. He just feels ridiculous admitting it.

But of course, she knows that. "I don't have any appointments this afternoon." Her tone makes it clear that this isn't really a suggestion. "I'll make sure you wake up."

He manages a grateful smile. "Even a good couple of hours sounds like heaven."

Deanna smiles back at him; there's a soft, golden heat inside his head, and then he's out like a light.

  


*

  


"I'm going to find out if anyone else on the ship has had these kind of experiences."

He nods, rubbing at his beard in that way he does when he's either worried or tired and doesn't notice himself doing it. She reaches out and lays her hand tenderly against his cheek. There are faint circles under his eyes, and he's worryingly pale. She's rarely seen Will looking this... haggard.

"You're still not sleeping well, are you?"

"Beverly prescribed a hot milk toddy." He shakes his head. "I could have drunk a pitcher of coffee for all the good it did."

"Maybe it has something to do with this sensation you mentioned. Lack of REM sleep can play some strange tricks on your mind." She really, really hopes this isn't going to be similar to the Tyken's rift; she knows he's thought of that, too, how close they all came to utter madness, and is as worried as she is.

"Maybe." He sighs heavily, and she can feel it in her own chest. "I have an astrophysics meeting to get to. Call me when you know some more?"

Part of her wants to tell him not to go, to take him instead back to his quarters and make him rest, whatever the hour. If she could get away with such a thing, she'd do it in a heartbeat, just to ease that fatigue radiating off him: but she's a professional, a Starfleet officer, and so is he, and this is about more now than just her worry for him.

"I'll set up a meeting for this afternoon," she says instead, and squeezes his hand.

  


*

  


He wonders if he's the only one to notice how she commands the computer on his behalf, or that he's letting her; if anyone else in the room notices her staying so close to him, and the reassurance he's taking from it. No one else seems quite as tired, but if they're even half as scatterbrained as he's been these last few days, probably not.

He's glad that she didn't find anyone else who's had these weird, unnerving experiences, but he's really not encouraged by how it's affected half the command staff and almost no one else. In his mind, that's not exactly evidence of something innocent or accidental going on.

Then the lights are down and the sounds start and Kaminer has her hands clapped over her ears, utter terror on her face, and he has _been on that table_ and _why has he been on that table_ and he's never going to admit to anyone but Deanna how much he wants to do exactly the same thing.

  


*

  


"They're going to take me whether I want to go or not," Will says, and she hates, violently, helplessly, that she can't argue that.

  


*

  


They often kiss goodnight: they live next door to each other, after all. They generally work similar shifts, spend a great deal of their off time if not together, then in similar spaces. He's been known to come out of his cabin just to catch her on her way in, or out, and she's attuned enough to his presence that she at least touches his mind when he passes her door. And there are the times, of course, when a goodnight kiss will turn into something more, and not so much of a goodnight after all.

Tonight is different.

He can't bring himself to invite her in. He's afraid if he does, he'll let the exhaustion and nerves and fear get the better of him and not want her to leave. He's even more afraid that they might decide to take her, too, and he doesn't even want to think about that. Instead he offers her a smile, the best he can muster, and leans down to kiss her softly, his mouth lingering against hers for a few precious moments before he makes himself pull back. Her palms are hot against his chest, her eyes filled with emotion.

"Imzadi," she whispers, and he has never been so glad of that word as at times like these, to have something that means all the things he needs to hear and all the things he wants to say. He can feel her worry, her own fear; but her pride and confidence in him, too, and that gives him more strength right now than the stimulant running through his bloodstream.

"Goodnight, imzadi." He lifts her hands to his lips and presses a last kiss to the back of her fingers, and flashes her a brave smile as he steps back into his quarters. "I'll see you in the morning."

  


*

  


She listens for his mind all night, from the moment his door closes. He tidies up his quarters, gets ready for bed, turns out the lights, and she's silently there through all of it. She feels his trepidation as he lies down, and carefully shields her own anger that something as intimate as his own bed should make him - should make anyone - so uneasy.

On any other night, she'd call him. But she can't, so instead she waits, wide awake, and listens while they take him from the safety of his bed, and does nothing.

She doesn't move a muscle until she can feel him again: his sudden reappearance four decks above her head is like finally coming up for air.

  


*

  


"You were always gone while I was asleep," she says quietly from behind him, and he can hear enough apology in her voice that he reaches for her hand and holds her fingers tight. He's settled as comfortably as he can be on the floor of his quarters, with Deanna cross-legged on the couch behind him and her skilled hands working the knots out of his neck and shoulders.

"It's not your fault," he says firmly. "There was nothing you could have done." She can't keep track of every single person on the ship, and he doesn't expect her to keep track of him. They can only grieve for Hagler and be thankful that he and Rager escaped mostly unscathed, and that there weren't more casualties before they closed the rift.

Deanna rubs her thumb lightly across the back of his fingers, catching the thought. "Any news on Ensign Rager?"

"Beverly thinks they can save her arm, though she might not have full use of it for a while."

"That's good." She tugs her hand back, digs her fingers in again, and he winces as she finally hits the large, angry ball of tension near the base of his neck. She could block the discomfort for him, and she did offer, but there's something cathartic about feeling it. His own arm, strangely, has never hurt at all: he can't even find a scar, and he's looked.

"Try not to think about it," Deanna says.

"Easier said than-" and then she presses hard, without warning, and the ball unravels with a burst of hot pain that catches him off guard and makes her wince, this time, in sympathy. "Done," he finishes, and then can't help a smile as she leans down and brushes her lips against his neck to cool the pain. "Mm. Is that a valid distraction technique, Counselor?"

She smiles. "If it helps."

"It does." Having her close, being with her; that always helps, and would even if she didn't give the best massages in the galaxy.

  


*

  


Midnight, and it hits her like the crest of a wave breaking: disgust, annoyance, an almost nauseating fatigue that makes her own body ache in sympathy. She reaches out, instinctively - and finds Will in bed in the dark, terribly awake, and his emotions grate like hot coals as she slips into his mind.

She touches the comm panel. "Will, if you can't sleep, why don't you just come over?"

His deep sigh is immediate, heartfelt, and extremely apologetic. " _*I was hoping I wouldn't be bothering you too much.*_ "

"I was only reading."

" _*It's stupid-*_ " he starts to protest, and then sighs, again. " _*Give me a minute.*_ "

She gives him that, though she doesn't need to: thirty seconds later he's walking through her door.

"It's stupid," he says again, straight away, vehement and frustrated beyond belief, as she pats the couch beside her. "It turns out I've had maybe ten hours' sleep this whole week - I'm so tired I can't see straight. You'd think insomnia would be impossible."

She stands even as he sits down, goes to the replicator for a pattern she hasn't used in years but can only hope will help. "You've been through a literal recurring nightmare, Will." She puts a glass in his hand, folding his fingers around it. The faint herbal scent reminds her of home, of comfort and relaxation, and she gently projects those same feelings as she sits back down beside him. "Drink this. I think you'll find it a little more effective than Beverly's remedy."

He raises an eyebrow. "Do I wanna know what's in it?"

" _S'slital._ " She smiles, sensing his scepticism. "Drink it."

"Okay, okay." He takes a careful sip. "Mm. Delicious."

She shakes her head at him and reaches up to caress his cheek. She'll invite him into her bed tonight, if only because she wants that reassurance, too, that nothing is coming out of the dark to steal him away while she sleeps. "You're going to be fine, Will."

He smiles gamely, if wearily, back at her. "I always am."

  


*

  


Her bedroom is exactly like his, all but the personal décor: her bed is exactly the same as his, as well, standard _Galaxy_ -class crew issue. Neither of those things have ever bothered him, before.

"You know, when I think about you dragging me into bed, this isn't what I usually have in mind."

Deanna rolls her eyes at him from the pillow. "How is it you can barely stand and you still find the energy to be funny?"

He offers her a smile she'll see right through. "Gotta keep my priorities straight." He's just covering his nerves - nervous, going to bed with Deanna: that _is_ enough to make him laugh - but then, he knows that she knows that. It's still not easy to get into the bed beside her; but he will admit, similarities aside, Deanna's is somehow far less daunting than his own.

He makes himself lie down; get under the covers; put his head on the pillow. He's tense, and he knows she can feel that as she nestles up to him, puts her head on his shoulder in return. Her weight against him is as familiar as ever, a soft furnace of heat. She doesn't turn the lights out, and he's grateful.

"Get some sleep," she says softly, one warm hand over his heart, and that's when he finally manages to close his eyes.

  


*

  



End file.
